Listen to Audio Recording

Source: mari_g._-_toronto,_ont._canada_-_6.6.15.mp3 File: marig-torontoontcanada-6615.mp3 Duration: 01:09:25

============================================================

I would like to thank the committee for asking me to host Mari. It is an honor and a privilege to do anything for this conference and for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I talked to Mari on the phone a couple of days before her flight, and we were making arrangements, and I said, she said, well, meet at the baggage claim. I said, okay, I'm about medium height, I have brown hair and blue eyes, and I'm 44, so I have a little gray, too, and she said, that's all right, darling, I'm all white. And I said, well, I'll send you a picture so you can know me, and she said, all right, and we talked for a little while, and when I met her at baggage claim, there were several little ladies that were all white, and I knew her immediately. And we were walking in the car, and she said, oh, I always know my alcoholics.

You didn't have to send me that picture. So we got in the car, and we started driving here, and she said, tell me your story, and I went, no, you tell me your story. And she said, no, she said, you're going to hear my story. And I said, but Mari, I have to have something to say about you from the podium. And she said, well, I guess you could say that I'm a real alcoholic. And I said, all right, I guess you are. And what I've seen in Mari this weekend is a woman who clearly loves Alcoholics Anonymous. She is a woman full of humility, love, and service. She is an example to us all, and her whole department shouts that she is a woman with an answer. So would you please help me welcome to the podium Mari G. from Toronto, Canada.

My name is Mari, and I am an alcoholic. And I'm just delighted to be here, and I'm so grateful to be sober. And I would like to thank Warren. I had seen Warren at another conference, and he told me about this one. And he just exuded love and enthusiasm for this. But you really have to come here to feel the spirit of the, whatever the spirit is at the Canyon here. It is something just magnificent. I don't even know the words to use, but it is certainly unconditional love and acceptance, and great, great courtesy, and great, great kindness. You know, I just love our voice.

He's my kind of guy. You know, when he talks about, don't wear your hat in the room. You know, I want to, I wish I was still like old King Henry VIII. You know, when I see somebody at my meeting with a hat on, I want to say, off with your head! And I'd like to thank Julie. Julie has been absolutely wonderful. It's not easy coming and picking someone up at the airport. I mean, you know, I get really, I get strange and odd people picking me up at the airport. You know, sometimes they'll have my name written on a sign, but they hold the sign up facing them. So I know who they are immediately. That's my alcoholic, you know. And sometimes they've got these psychotic eyes.

It's like, is this still reality I'm in? I know who you are. And yeah, so thank you, Julie, and thank you for all your kindness and your courtesy. I mean, that really means so much to me. You'd go to any lengths. Thank you. And Vinay, I'm just so grateful, you know, you and Jim started this, and I'm just delighted to be a part of it and to see how Al-Anon and AA come together here. It just makes my heart sing. So thank you so much. And Dave and Susan, who've been so great in keeping it going as well. Thank you so much. I would also like to thank the great speakers that have been here, Mike and Darlene and Michael. Michael is an old buddy of mine, like Vinay is. But the wonderful speakers, and I've just enjoyed it so very much. Thank you. I want to talk about the play last night, because the play to me was just absolutely phenomenal. You know, I mean, we alcoholics have so much talent. You know, the creative director, I mean, he was, I mean, that was just absolutely phenomenal with his producer. And it was mesmerizing. Last night, after it

[00:05:03]

finished, I was walking up the hill and I was talking to my God, you know, and I was saying, God, you know, you want us to be joyous, happy and free. And I know you must be smiling tonight, your children of the night, your alcoholic kids that are enjoying themselves and jumping about and displaying all this talent. I can see you smiling, God. You know, I could feel it. How beautiful it was. Thank you. It was a gift. And my basket and everything else that I have that has come along with being here. So I you know, I will tell you about my story. I'll tell you a little bit about what it used to be like what happened and what it's like now. You probably heard I'm not from Canada. I got sober in Canada. And I am I was actually born in Glasgow, Scotland. And I have Scottish blood and a lot of Irish blood and a little bit of English. And I always thought that was my problem. You know, being Irish, Scottish, a little bit of English, you know, it's kind of like being born wanting to drink all the time, not wanting to pay for it. And then having an untreated Alan on like Maggie Thatcher, which is my English part, just disapproving of all of it.

And continually taking my inventory, you know, a deep level. And yeah, so it's kind of like having Braveheart, St. Patrick and Maggie Thatcher all rolled in. You know, and I was born into a really good Roman Catholic family, and they love God and they had faith. And Bill Wilson, our co founder wrote about a seeming inability to accept much on faith. And I just seemed to have been born that way with a seeming inability to accept the faith of my forefathers, that they had died for and they had fought for and it just carried them through two world wars and the deaths of children and the death. You know, also when I was born, they were bombing the second world war was on and they were bombing the Clyde. And it wasn't a very, I think, maybe that's what caused me to be on high alert, you know. It's like, you know, you're born in this drums, bombs drop and you think this isn't good. Let me get back in a moment, you know, let me get back in there, back in the womb, you know. And so, you know, from when I mean, you'll hear it time after time after time, Bill Wilson wrote a beautiful article called this matter of fear. And then the article this matter of fear, he spoke about his childhood. And he spoke about the great feelings of awkwardness he had. And this phobia about not being the same as his schoolmates. And this feeling of being on the outside looking in and this feeling of being less than and and he was just filled with fear at a very early age. And the way he dealt with that fear was he became aggressive. And that's what happened to me. I became aggressive because of all the fear I was carrying around. So you see, I always from I could think I felt different. You know, I always knew there was something seriously wrong with me. And the reason I knew there was something seriously wrong with me, is because people were always saying to me, there's something serious.

So I became aggressive at an early age, I was educated by Franciscan nuns. The nuns were trying to teach me to have character. I didn't know that character is something you do when nobody's looking. I didn't like the Franciscan nuns. And they didn't like me. Because I had an inability to tolerate any kind of authority. I did not I was not teachable. I had, you know, I had something a lot of Al-Anons will never give us any credit for it. And that is I had a high IQ. Alcoholics have a high IQ. It doesn't look like it, but we do. But the only thing a high IQ has done for me is I've never completed anything I've ever started. I get bored real quick. And anyway, because of this high IQ, I was sent to these wonderful nuns who were essentially trying to teach me everything that eventually I learned about in Alcoholics Anonymous, who were trying to teach me about the ways I could live in the world and love my God, my great creator. And I wanted none of it. And at 15, one of them hit me with the ruler and I hit her back. Oh, come on. Anyway, I've been making amends to nuns ever

[00:10:06]

since, trust me. But I was a bad act. And so I hit the nun. And I'm truly sorry I did that. And as I say, I've been able to make amends, but they expelled me. But you know, we get a little hints and guesses along the way. You see, God had never left me. I am the one who rowed away from God. On that horrible sea that we are on, I am the one that did the awful rowing away towards my God, piece by piece by piece, which I think is the essence of the soul sickness that I know that I suffered from. And God was giving me hints and guesses along the way that he was still there, and I did not pay attention. So when I was sitting outside the Mother Superior's office, she said, we've called your mother, your poor, long-suffering mother. My mother was president of the Union of Catholic Mothers. She never went out without her gloves on and her hat. And she used to look at me and say, I don't know where you came from. And if she didn't know, who knew? So anyway, this Mother Superior said, why don't you read that thing above my door, and it might do something for your measly little life. And I looked at this sign, and it said, of courtesy it is much less than courage of heart or holiness. But in the walks to me, it seems that the grace of God is in courtesy. And way back then, I wanted nothing to do with the grace of God. And I wanted nothing to do with courtesy. But many years later, coming through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, it was the grace of God that brought me, and it was the great courtesy you extended to me, like I found this weekend that kept me here. I went into nursing. I got bored with nursing. I went to London, England. I joined British Airways. You know, the other thing I had, like Bill Wilson, was I developed at 13 an obsession with death. An absolute obsession with death. I developed an obsession with self. I had an unbearable, unsheddable burden of self-consciousness. A self-consciousness that everywhere I went, I thought you were looking at me and finding me wanting. I thought you were looking at me and judging me. Everywhere I went, I was filled with this thing. And then I became obsessed with death and obsessed with eternity. And I started having panic attacks. I mean, I needed a drink early on. Believe me, I needed a drink. I am one of those, it talks about in the big book, that there are those two who suffer from grave mental and emotional disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity. This program works miracles. Miracles. So I remember when I was trying to be like everybody else, my friends were dating at 16. I went out with this guy because I wanted to be like my friends. I wanted to do everything they did to see if I would feel like them. This guy took me out. He wanted a reward at the end of the evening. He was getting quite kissy kissy. And I said to him, he was getting quite passionate, actually. I didn't know what it was really. And I said to him, so what do you think about death? He said, I think you should go home now. And eventually I took my sick self and you see, I was running away. I used to live in Jamaica. I lived across the road from Bob Marley in Kingston, Jamaica. And Bob Marley used to say, you're running and you're running and you're running away, but you can't run away from yourself. And my whole thing up until I took a drink at age 25, just like you, Michael, was running and running from myself. I kept running away from myself. I kept doing things that I felt would make me like you. And I was running guardless. I was running guardless. And I went down to London, England at 21. I joined British Airways. It was BOAC then. I'm flying all over the world. I'm on a little plane up at 30-odd thousand feet with all these people. I don't like people. I'm having panic attacks. And I said to myself, get married and you'll be well. Don't ask me where it came from. It was an intuitive thought. So I went, I found a really nice man. He was a lovely man. He was very wealthy. He was very cultured. He came from,

[00:15:08]

And he took me to live in Kingston, Jamaica. And in Kingston, Jamaica, I had everything that money could buy. And uh, I loved Jamaica, I loved the people, I felt, maybe this is where I belong. Because I had a feeling, I just, I felt comfortable on the island. Uh, for a little bit, and then my first son was born. And just after he was born, two weeks old he was, I thought, I'm going insane. I'm going to go into a deep psychosis and I will never come back. At the time, this should have been the happiest time in my life. I had this little child and I loved him so much.

And I had, I loved this man, and I had all this beauty around me. And I thought, I'm going to go mad. And they brought a doctor to me. He wanted to give me the Valium. I came to love them all later, believe me, the yum-yums. But, but I did not take that because another friend of mine came and said, give her a drink. I'd never had a drink. Jamaica has 151 proof rum. It is beautiful. I drank that 151 proof rum and it went all the way deep down inside of me like a piece of velvet and it wrapped itself around every raw nerve ending I had been walking around with for 25 years.

You see, alcohol is the ability to go down deep inside of my soul and still the madness and the blackness and whatever else is going on in there. Alcohol is the ability to take me and put me right there. Right there. And there is no there. It's an illusion. But how sweet it is. You know, Dr. Silkworth said men and women drink because they like the sense of ease and comfort that they get. And that's what I got. I don't know if it was the first drink, the second drink, or the third drink. But I knew that I had found my answer.

You see, I had found my answer in an innocuous little solution because what that liquor did for me was what eventually the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous would do for me slowly. See, alcohol, because of the abnormal reaction that I have, that maybe only 95% of the population of the world has, I have an unnatural reaction to alcohol. And what that alcohol does is it gives me a change of personality.

I'm no longer afraid. I no longer have panic attacks. I am no longer afraid of death. I am just so cool. And life is beautiful. And I love you. And I want to hear all about your life. As long as I have a drink. And I immediately drank every day. And I was very hospitable. I became very magnanimous. And life was good for about four years. Because women go down the road quicker than men. I drank every day. And I had my second child. And I drank every day I carried that child. Because I had lost the power of choice and drink. And I did not know that I knew I shouldn't be drinking what I was. But I tried not to drink as much. But by that time I just could not, not, not drink.

And I don't know why my child didn't have fetal alcohol syndrome. I can't say it's the grace of God. Because the grace of God is there for everybody. But my son was not born with fetal alcohol. And I have two little boys and I'm a chronic alcoholic. And my husband, all of my husbands have developed extreme nervous conditions. Because when I drink now I want to kill them. And they don't know that I'm having a personality change when I drink. And I don't know either.

And they develop this from being on alert all the time. And one night my husband dropped asleep and I hit him over the head with a piece of mahogany. And he had no sense of humor about that whatsoever. And his mother and father came and spoke to me and said, we don't know what's wrong with you. You used to be such a nice girl. You don't believe in God. You say you're supposed to be a Catholic. You need something. You need something in your life. We don't know what's wrong with you.

And they spoke to my mother. They called my mother in Scotland and said, you know, there's something seriously wrong with your daughter. My mother said, there was always something wrong with her.

[00:20:12]

And I had some friends in Jamaica and they thought that I needed this introduction to sensimilia, otherwise known as marijuana. And I did not think, you know, I told you Bob Marley lived across the road from me. I didn't like Bob because he was a pothead. And he didn't like me because I was an alcoholic. And alcohol is against the Rastafarian religion. And someone had given him this big old great house and he lived there with these Rastafarians. Now he was a great humanitarian, but I didn't like him because I didn't like pot.

And anyway, I went with my friends up into the mountains and I watched them and they said, Mary, come try a little sensimilia. Look how the liquor's making your eyes red. I said, I don't want nothing that's going to screw up my brain. I'll stick to liquor. And I watched them and they used to roll a big spliff and it was so big you couldn't even see their face. And he used to go, I just want to be a little old man.

Have a little vision. And he'd lie down and meditate. When I drink, I want action. When I drink, I want justice. When I drink, I want love. I will eventually end up lying down whether I want to or not. But not right now. I will tell you this. The one constant, great constant loves of my life have been my children. They play a huge part in my story. They play a huge part in everything that is in my life today because Alcoholics Anonymous gave them back.

But alcohol was taking me away from my children and I didn't know, I couldn't stop drinking. I was baffled. I was utterly and completely baffled. You see, I thought it was insane. There was a lot of, you know, with my genes, I mean, Ireland's an open air asylum. You've got to know that. I used to go there every year and used to say to my mother, she's not right. If you're not right, if you're not right in Ireland, you're not right anywhere. Trust me. And I had family who died with, you know, died in mental institutions. And I have an aunt, you know, and she can be sitting drinking a cup of tea and all of a sudden she freezes in time.

And people will come up and say, what happened to her? And my family says, she's just away. She'll soon be back. I just thought I was a little bit crazy and that I had to drink these enormous amounts. But you see, what I didn't understand was I was losing control and I didn't know it was the first drink and I didn't know it was a phenomenon of craving. And I was losing control and I'd go to the country club in Jamaica and these people who used to like me stayed away from me now.

And if I had an argument with somebody, I'd pick up a bottle and challenge them to a duel. And I was not behaving well. And I decided I was going to leave the island and take my two little boys. And I'll just share this with you because I told you I didn't like Bob Marley. He had a BMW and I had a BMW. And one day I'm in the garage and I'm half in the bag and I've got my cigarette holder and I'm standing outside waiting for them to fill my car, swaying in the breeze. And Bob Marley drives up with two Rastafarians and his BMW and he shouts over at me and he calls my name and he said, yo, you're a hedonist and a narcissist. And you don't, you think it's funny.

He said, you're a hedonist and a narcissist and you don't care about anybody but yourself. He said, you think you're so smart. I said, I'm known to have some intellect.

[00:25:20]

He said, if you think you're so smart, what does BMW stand for? I said, Bavarian Motor Works. He says, no man, it means Bob Marley and the Wailers. And he was right. I was a hedonist and a narcissist and I didn't care about anybody but myself. I was selfish, self-centered and self-willed on riot. I was totally and utterly encased, claustrophobically encased in self. I loved these little boys and yet I had to drink.

And I left my husband and I took my kids and he didn't want me to leave the island. I should never have been allowed to leave the island with my boys. I was a chronic alcoholic. But I'll tell you this, I loved them and I couldn't leave them because I loved them so much. And they were nine and five when I left Jamaica with my little boys. And I went to Canada. I went back to Scotland and a man I'd known for many years, he called me. He said, I love getting married. I have done it with alarm and regularity. I mean, I love getting married because I love that when you first meet, you know, and it's very exciting and you have that ding-a-ling-a-ling, you know, and you look in your eyes and it's really exciting.

Really exciting and wonderful. And then you get married. And after about three days, I can hear him breathe. You know, did he always breathe like that? The problem is not him. The problem is me. I don't know how to love. I am too encased in self to love. I don't know. I don't know what to give to another human being. I know I love my sons, but they don't demand anything, you see. I have seen wonderful marriages and I'm so grateful for the wonderful marriages that happen in Alcoholics Anonymous and for the wonderful marriages that AA saves and for the lives of the children who are, you know, children of these marriages. It's wonderful. Thank you, God.

But I had none of that then. So this nice man said, let's get married. I'll take you to Canada. I thought, what a good idea. Drink Canada dry. Here I come. And I landed in Canada. We landed in Alberta, Calgary, Canada. Cowboy country. And it was minus 40. I realized I'd made the first of a lot of very bad decisions and by now I'm shaking in the morning. And because I am a bright bunny, I got a job as a pharmaceutical rep and I'm a blackout drinker on the road.

And the man I married didn't didn't. The man I married, my second husband, was a born again Christian. He tried to. He truly tried. God bless him. He was a wonderful man. He tried to get me to God through Jesus. And he used to take me to charismatic meetings. But I had been to them. My helper in Jamaica used to take me downtown Kingston to charismatic. I've been prayed over and I've been jumped over. And I've been I mean, I've been I've had brooms going over me and I've even had portions going over me. And but he tried to help me. The only thing is he didn't work. And I used to say to him, don't you think you should get a job? And he used to say God would provide.

So I sent him off for God to provide for him. And I think he's still doing well. And unfortunately, that left me and my two little boys and my children having an alcoholic mother. My children took a journey with alcoholism and they should never have touched a drop. You know, we laugh a lot in here, but it's a dreadful, dreadful illness and it destroys the lives of family and destroys the lives of children.

And my poor boys, they didn't know what was wrong with me. I never physically abused my children, but I am an alcoholic mother. And I tried everything possible to keep my boys together. And in the end, I crashed the car, the company car too many times. They fired me. And my boys would see, you see, my boys would see me bringing home people at night and I used to think they were sleeping. And my sons would wake up without my knowledge. And the next day, they would say to me, Mommy, who is that man that was here last night? And I would say, I don't know.

There's that man that was here last night, and I would say to them, there is no man, you were dreaming, I had my children question their reality, and I'm so sorry that alcohol, the illness of alcoholism had me do that to my boys, and I drive when I'm drunk in the car, and you know, sometimes I'd try, I'd try so hard not to drink, all I wanted to be was a mom to my boys, and I couldn't, because I was a hopeless alcoholic, and I remember one day my little son,

[00:30:24]

the young one, said, mommy, bring some Jamaican chicken to school, I said, I will, and I said, I'm not going to drink, and I woke up in the morning, I got all the things together, I said, I'm going to cook this, and I started to shake, and I thought, how am I going to go and face all those people without a drink, and I had one drink, and eventually I had to have another drink, and I take the chicken down, and I drop down in front of them, and smash all the chicken all over the place, and my son's looking like this, he's drunken mother, and that was to happen time after time, and you know, unbeknownst to me, my eldest boy had written to his father, because I decided I'd go back to Jamaica, I was two years in Canada, my family had come and put me in detox while I was there, they thought I had early menopause, it's called Irish rationalization, while I was in detox in Calgary, it was just me and five native Canadians, and they used to hold my soup to me and my coffee to me when I was shaking too much to hold it by myself, I had DTs, and I used to come to bite my tongue, they told me they drank because their spirit was broken, and I knew at some level my spirit was broken, but when I got out of there, I didn't know anything about AA, I'd never heard about AA, and I decided to go back to Jamaica, my son, at 11 years of age, a decision no son should ever have to make, wrote a letter to his daddy by himself and posted it, and said, daddy, when we come back to Jamaica, we're supposed to stay with you for a week, but I don't want to ever live with mummy again, because she's going to kill me and my brother driving drunk, and she brings men home at night, and we're so afraid, and I didn't know he'd done that, and I went back to Jamaica, and the children's father said, can you have them for a week, he'd marry again, and I said, yeah, sure, and I had rented an old house in Jamaica, and after a week, I said, why don't you bring in my boys, and he said, you're not getting them back, you're a drunk, you're a lush, and I'll put my son on the stand to testify, and I had my first suicide attempt, I took two bottles of 151 proof rum and two bottles of Valium, enough to kill a horse, because I couldn't imagine living without my boys, I just couldn't imagine living, this is unnatural, this is an aberration, and yet I am an aberration as a mother, but it's an aberration to my soul that you take away my boys, and he said, he who holds the gold makes the rules, and he's a very wealthy man, and I remember sliding down the fridge in this old rented house and thinking, sweet oblivion, no more pain, and they found me, alcoholics do not die easy, we're hard to dead, when someone said, I know if I drink again, I'll be dead, I said, you wish, some of us live forever drinking, anyway, they found me and they took me to the hospital, they pumped out my stomach, a psychiatrist came and visited me the next day and told me something that was very observant, intellectually correct, and definitely relevant to my condition, the psychiatrist said to me, you mustn't do that anymore, I ended up living in an old run down hotel in Kingston, where I was with other expatriates, the sun had been out and doing, we were all drunks, and when you're a drunk like me, you want to find a drink with a drunk like me, and I'd find an old guy from Tennessee or Cincinnati or Oklahoma, what was his name, I loved him, is he here, and him and I would have a few drinks together, and after a couple of drinks, things would become possible again, and I'd look at him and he'd begin to look real good, and he'd look at me and tell me I was beautiful, and him and I would wander into the enchanted cottage, the only thing is the sun comes up, the pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization of what alcohol has done, the depths of depravity has taken me to one more time, and the self-hate and the self-loathing are beyond comprehension, and you know that you will never again, ever be able to hold up your head,

[00:35:17]

because you're done, you just can't die, you're dead, your soul's dead, and you know you'll go on and do this again, but there's no way out, and on one such morning, as if it was prearranged, walking out of the hotel with my escort of the night before, a car passed by with my ex-husband and his new wife and my two sons, that I wasn't allowed to see, and he came and he said if you don't leave the island I'll kill you, and he gave me the money he owed me for the two years child support he hadn't paid while I was in Canada, and I went to Miami to drink myself to death, because there was nothing left, I'd never heard of Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm hopeless, I am hopeless, you know, I have two uncles who were killed in the second world war, one of them's buried in Belgium and one in Greece, my father was in Dunkirk, I have another two uncles, my mother's brothers, that were in Japanese prisoner of war camps, when they came back you wouldn't even think they were human, they were walking skeletons, and they never got right, ever, they died not getting right, they used to tell me that what the Japanese, and I don't mean that today, we're all at great peace now, but what their captors used to try to do was to deprive them of hope, to make them and create a state of utter and complete hopelessness and despair, and they couldn't do it, and yet me, voluntary glass in hand of my own volition, drunk myself into that state of hopelessness and despair, that's where I was, and I had this little apartment in Miami and I'd drink and pass out and they'd come in and steal my furniture, they'd come in and steal my clothes, they'd come in and steal my jewellery, and in the end they'd come in and steal me, and there was nothing left of me, and I got thrown out of the apartment because I couldn't afford to pay the rent, and I ended up living at the bottom of Lincoln Road on Miami Beach, my life down there was like going through a sewer in a glass bottom boat, and I don't need to do a fifth step from here, but I will tell you that I know what it's like to be taken up and thrown away like an old piece of used cloth, with no dignity, and never ever thinking that you'll ever be worth anything again in life, and there is no road from that place to this except the glorious glorious thing that we have been given in 1935.

Alcoholics Anonymous could only ever have started in the United States of America, because it's only in the United States of America that the freedom of religious thought allowed for a God of your own understanding that is the absolute basis of Alcoholics Anonymous, so we should be very grateful for what the USA has given the world and drunks like me, who came from a hopeless condition of mind and body.

Since 1935, that's all we've had. 80 years on the 10th of June, prior to that, chronic alcoholics were doomed to die. What is this magnificence that started in 1935? Here. It's amazing. I will never forget it. I will never forget it. But you see, I didn't know that then, and I panhandled off an old woman. I used to stay awake at night and sleep in the day, and I panhandled off an old woman that used to live in Jamaica, an old English woman, and she moved to Fort Lauderdale, and she contacted my family, and my two aunts came and got me, and they cried and wept when they saw me.

I still go to Scotland every year. One of them just died this year. It broke my heart. But I go back every year, and they say to me, the first thing they say to me is, how's your feet? Because when they found me, I had on these old flip-flops, and I used to tie them to my feet, and because of the dirt and the sweat, they had embedded themselves in the soles of my feet, and they had to have them duck out the soles of my feet.

That's where alcohol took me. The other thing they say to me is, has that AA found out what's wrong with you yet? So my aunts came, and they sent me back to… I didn't want to go to Scotland, and what had happened, they told me, you know, in Alcoholics Anonymous, we say coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous.

[00:40:18]

My father was a wonderful man. He'd been a Franciscan monk. He got angry with them when he was young. They think he went into the monastery because his father was such a hopeless alcoholic. He left the monastery, joined the Second World War, was right in till the last bit, and then went into the Navy, and he never drank. He was a wonderful man, and he retired. I heard that I had gone missing. Nobody knew where I was, and my father said to my mother, one morning at three o'clock in the morning, I don't know where my lassie is. I don't know where my grandchildren are.

I'm going for a walk, and dropped dead in the street. At the same time, I was living on the street. These are the legacies I would have if I didn't have the steps, how it would be unable for me to live consciously in this world with some of these things. And I went to Canada, and a man I had known for many years and had known my family, he married me. I have to say he married me because I wasn't conscious at the ceremony.

The first time I tried to kill him, he took me to a psychiatrist, and the second time, they put me in the mental institutions. I'm four years in and out of the mental institutions in Edmonton, Alberta. I am a retread in the mental institutions. We go in there, and they don't know what's wrong with us. I used to get many diagnoses, because I love all the yum-yums, and anyway, if I can behave crazy, I will.

The Librium, the Balium, the yum-yum-yum, you know. And the last time I was taken there, I was taken by the police, and I won't get into it. It's a big, long police report, because that's all I have is a police report. I don't remember any of it. I did not behave well, that's all I can say. And then I went crazy. And they put me in the mental institution under my doctor I'd had for four years. And he, I'd lied to him. You know, that's what we do. You know, we lie so much to these good men that are trying to help us.

And the last time I was in there, he said, Mary, we've gone over your diagnosis and changed it so many times, and now we're sure what was wrong with you. He said, once we get you stable on the drugs, you're going to have to get out of here, and you're going to have to go to court. He said, and I've written something to try and keep you out of prison. And he let me read it, and it went through the four years he'd been looking after me.

And he said, in the end, the team of psychiatrists and I have decided that this woman suffers from three primary psychiatric illnesses. One, she's a chronic alcoholic. Two, she has an abnormal personality. And three, she's a chronic depressive. And she also suffers from a profound feeling of inner emptiness. That just about defines us all, doesn't it? And the prosecuting attorney wanted to put me away, and the judge or the lawyer said, this woman's tragic social circumstance.

And I was a tragic social circumstance until I came to you. One night, I was sitting, drinking myself sober. You ever been there? And I picked up the phone in a Fonde A. Now, they used to bring meetings into the mental institution, but I was too full of drugs to ever hear anything. And they used to say to me, do you have hope? And I used to say to them, I have no hope. I have no hope. And something stuck, and I picked up the phone, a Fonde A, and a man came called Stan.

He was a Native American. He's called a Métis, which means he's French, Aboriginal. And he had 29 years' sobriety. And he told me his story. And he said, tell me a little bit about you, Mari. And then he said, I think you're one of us. And nobody had ever said that to me before. And I said, Stan, I know I'm an alcoholic, but I'm also nuts. I have a psychiatric report that says I'm nuts. He said, Mari, the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is like 12 adjustable wrenches to fit any nut that comes through the door.

I love that. And I got active in AA, but I didn't do much. I got active in AA but I didn't do much and eventually I had one slip. My dry date is the 10th of August, 1984.

[00:45:00]

On the 9th of August, 1984, Stan and some other wonderful people came and took me to an AA meeting. Never say you can't take a wet drunk to an AA meeting. Where are we going to take them? Where are we going to take them? Pick them up in a limo outside the treatment centre? That's no criticism about treatment centres by the way. We are very grateful for all the help we can get. But we don't get these hard bottoms anymore.

Stan told me afterwards, he said, you know you were in really bad shape when we took you to that meeting. You were shaking so much strangers were waving back at you. And that night, a little gal with 12 years sobriety, doing what we do, one drunk talking to another, she spent the night with me. And the next day she said, I'm going to leave you now because my sponsor said you're a loser. And I want to stick with winners and Alcoholics Anonymous.

She said, but before I go I'm going to ask you to kneel down and say the third set of prayer. I said to her, I think of nothing. I kneel for nothing. And then something said, think of your children's eyes. And I knelt down and what I thought about was the previous Christmas I'd just got out of the mental institution. It was coming up for Christmas, November. And I called my family in Scotland and said, I'm not drinking, I'm on medication.

Call the children's father and see if I can come to Jamaica and have them for a week. And he said to call him and I called him. He said, yeah, you come in Jamaica, you can have them for five days for Christmas. They miss you. I hear you're not drinking. You stay at that certain hotel. I'll come and check on you throughout the day to make sure you're not drinking. I'll have someone bring them to the airport. You can rent a car and you can have them.

And I put my boys on the phone. Mommy, mommy, we can't wait to see you. We hear you've been in hospital a lot. Where have you been? We think about you. My poor little boys, poor little boys. And I said, what do you want for Christmas? And I was so excited. Oh, my God. And I get on the plane in Edmonton, Alberta, and I get off in Toronto. I have to change to get an Air Jamaica flight to Kingston. And I buy a bottle of vodka.

In the Air Inbond store, duty free store in Toronto. And I drink it. Between Toronto and Kingston. And when I get off the plane in Kingston, my sons are there at the barrier shouting, mommy, mommy. And I drop down drunk at their feet. And the person who brought them said, you won't be seeing your mother this trip. And I remember lying on the ground and seeing the pieces of Christmas paper. My children had been fighting to get at me and they never got to me.

I had to leave the next day and fly back because they said, you won't be seeing them this trip. And I wanted to die. And I called my mother in Scotland and told her what had happened. And I didn't know my mother was dying of ovarian cancer. This is the legacy I have. If I wasn't able to make amends. The great devastation we do to our families. Really. Really. And my mother said to me, I want you to get on the plane and go back with dignity.

And think of the courage of your ancestors. Think of the courage of your ancestors. And I got on the plane. And I went back. Back in the mental institution. And that's what I thought about. And I knelt down and I held her hands and I said the third step prayer. And from that moment to this I've had no desire for a drink. Some unmerited gift of grace was given to me. I believe, like William James said in The Varieties of Religious Experience, when he examined all these drunks who had been winos, skid row bums.

And overnight they became upstanding members of the community. And he went around and said to them, what happened to you? And they said they had all reached a place of complete despair and hopelessness. And that seems to be the aperture for God's grace to come through and heal us. And I loved it. I loved it. I got very active in AA. I got a wonderful sponsor right away, Carol. I shook a lot in the beginning.

And I learned to laugh in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, one of the meetings I used to go to, it was a Saturday morning meeting, and they used to have a row in the front for beginners and it was called Shaker's Row. And we used to all sit and shake and tell goofy stories about drunk days. And one day we're sitting there and it's still warm outside and the window's open

[00:50:02]

and I see the guy next to me, he sits and all of a sudden he starts looking up at the wall. And the one next to him is looking up at the wall. And I look up at the wall. And I wonder, what are they looking at? And I see this big kind of an insect, huge. And I don't trust their judgment, you know what I mean? I don't know if I'm really seeing this or if it's, you know, kind of a group psychosis here.

And in no time I said, it's really there, it's a big old horsefly. And I learned to trust your judgment. See, I was told when I came in here that I'd never respected anything in my life. I'd have to be teachable, I'd have to learn to take instruction. I'd have to resign from the debating society. They told me 90 meetings in 90 days, if you don't like what you hear, we're glad to refund you your misery.

Get a big book, get a sponsor, get active. And I did all of that. And Bill Wilson was my higher power because although I didn't want to drink, I didn't know what had happened to me. You know, I'm trying to get this idea of a God in my head, going back to my childhood God, I couldn't get it in my head. And they said, you've got to find a God of your own understanding. I said, well, I'm just praying to God right now.

I don't know what this God is, but I'm just praying to whoever it is that's keeping me sober. Get up in the morning, kneel down, please God, keep me sober. Lie down, sit down at night, thank you God. I still do that today. And one day the messenger comes in various shapes and sizes. And one day I'm at this meeting and this old woman is talking. She's the most spiritual woman I'd ever heard. But she was saying things like, as a drunken woman I never went to bed with an ugly man, but I sure woke up with a few.

She said, but I don't do it anymore because I am a lady in Alcoholics Anonymous. I am a lady in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I went up to her afterwards and I said, who is this God you have? I'm looking for a God. She said, Mary, my God's called Harold. I said, Harold? You know that prayer, our Father who art in heaven, Harold be thy name. She was pulling my leg, but she made me laugh. And I found a God in my own understanding.

You know, it says that the consciousness of the presence of God will become the greatest fact of your life today. God is great, God is everything. Without God I'm nothing. I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt. I know God is here right now. God loves the canyon. God's presence is here. We can feel it, it's tangible. My God, how lucky we are. We are the most fortunate people in the world. You know, I suffer from a soul sickness.

That's what the old timers used to call it. And Carl Gustav Jung used to say, until the soul gets what it needs, it will get sick again. And I found out in my journey in sobriety, when I'm getting complacent, or I need to do a little more work, or I need to look at something, the soul will begin to get a little bit sick again. Bill Wilson talks about that in the 11th and the 12th step. The 12 and 12 and the 11th step.

He says, just like the body can begin to diminish if it's not looked after, so can the soul. And it takes constant work. And I eventually, I did my 4th and 5th very quickly. And I started making amends. Flying up and down to Jamaica. My mother died. Both my parents were dead before I found AA. And I was able to make amends to them. But, you know, just before I got sober, when my mother was dying of ovarian cancer, this is another little thing that God did for me, and I wasn't even sober yet.

Did it through my mother. She was dying of cancer and she had a few weeks left to live. And she always said that the only way I'll ever get to see my grandkids, the only way he'll ever send them to me is if I'm dying. And she was dying. And he did bring them to see her in Scotland. But I was there a week earlier. And I said to my mum, Mum, what do you want to do? Anything you'd like to see. She said, Lassie, drive me up to the highlands.

Now she loved the bagpipes, my mum. And the highlands, if you know it, is beautiful. Beautiful. And it's little windy roads. And the English took all the land off the people. So it's just vast tracts of land and hills. Beautiful. And we're going up this little windy road, and I'm going slow. And my mum wanted the windows open a wee bit. And suddenly I hear the bagpipes. And I think, am I hearing things?

No, I wasn't drinking the two weeks I was there with my mum. And I come around this bend, and there's a piper in full Scottish war dress,

[00:55:01]

standing on top playing the bagpipes. And my mother said, look. And started to cry. And I found out afterwards, he'd been doing that every year. And his family before had done that. His family before, his family had been forced to go to Australia when the highland clear-outs happened generations ago. And they come back all the time and play the bagpipes at that certain time of the year. And that happened to be when my mother was there.

And she got the bagpipes just before she died. And I'm so grateful. To me it was a little thing from God, from my mum. And I made a lot of amends, and I went to live in Toronto, Canada. Toronto, I moved to Toronto, because my son was going to be going to school for a year. And after two years, my son went back to Jamaica. I'd made amends, and I got married in AA. You know what? It says, when boy meets girl on AA campus, it said they should both examine themselves to see there's no deep psychological problem preventing them from having a good relationship.

I don't like that part. I like the poetic part, you know. And I'm two years sober, I'm red-hot AA, but I'm still crazy. Because, you know, I'm one of those, I get a personality change every day contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition. But I have to do the personality change over and over and over again, because there was a lot wrong with me before I came here. But I think I'm well. I can quote Bill Wilson.

You know, I'm just crazy about AA. I've got a great sponsor, Renie, now. She's got 53 years sobriety. I'm doing everything she tells me to do. I meet this guy. Now, if he was attracted to me, he wasn't well. But, you know, he had five years sober, and he was a great guy. And, you know, you think the light in the eyes of the people's spirituality, sometimes it's psychosis. And there's a reason they say no relationships for a year or two years.

Well, for me they said two years, but I wasn't ready yet. But I didn't know that. And here's what happens. You still go to a lot of meetings. Somebody asks you to read how it works. You're falling in love in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. You read how it works. Your eyes flit across a crowded room. And I could see John and I wandering off into the sunset. Under the circle and triangle. With Bill and Bob up in heaven saying, Bless you, my child.

It was beautiful. I shared it with my sponsor. She said, Don't get married. You're an emotional retard. I knew she was jealous. So John and I eloped. In the close proximity of marriage, when you haven't had the required personality change to enable you to be a good loving partner, there'll be a lot of problems. And if there'll be a lot of problems, in the onus of alcoholism, emotional disorders, then you will not become well again.

And after a few years, him and I were not doing too well. Not because we didn't love each other. We just weren't doing too well. And I had to leave there and go live at the YWCA. Because that's what my sponsor told me to do. And I did it. And I went to meetings, three meetings a day. Turned my will and my life over to the care of God one more time. I got a call. It said, Your sons have been kicked out of the father's house in Jamaica.

My sponsor said, Go back to Jamaica. Make amends to the island. And fix your boys. One of my boys had been going to the Florida Air Academy in Melbourne, Florida. And he'd gone back to Jamaica and he didn't want to be there. I sent him to Scotland. He wanted to go to Scotland. My other boy wanted to go to Broad Community College in Florida. And I stayed on the island and worked for two years and got very active in AA in Jamaica.

And I worked with the poor people down there. And I like to think I gave something back to the island. And when I came back, I got an apartment in the same building as my ex-husband. We signed a separation agreement. Both my sons then came up to live with me. And one day I couldn't get them on the phone, my husband. And I still had a key for his door. And I took my son up. Neighbour came. I said, Is his car down there?

He said, Yeah. I said, Something's wrong. And I tried the key in the door and it was bolted on the inside. And my son kicked down the door. And he was lying on the ground and he'd had a massive stroke. And he'd been lying there for two nights and three days. And John could never speak again and he couldn't understand the spoken word. And he was a brilliant guy. And he was in hospital for two years.

And he was in hospital for two years. There's only two words my husband could say, and I can't say them from the podium. But what they meant was, take a journey, right? And, uh…

[01:00:04]

And he loved the U.S., and I had him home, and he was very childlike. He had right arm paralysis, and, uh, as I say, he couldn't speak. He couldn't understand when you spoke to him, but I knew his brain was still in there. And when we crossed over the border, driving into the States, because he loved it, he'd take out his little flag and wave it. And, um, and he just loved it. He was going to… We always wanted to retire to Virginia.

Well, one day I'm coming back, and I'm speeding through Georgia, because he wants to go to the little boys' room. And a cop stops me and says, you're speeding. I'm going to have to give you a ticket. And my husband's sitting there with his flag, and, uh, he said, what's wrong with him? I said, he's had a massive stroke. He's got massive brain damage. He doesn't speak. And he said, okay, well, we don't take checks, so I'll take you to the police station, and the ATM's conveniently located, and you can pay your speeding ticket.

So he takes us round, and he goes round to the van to help my husband out, and my husband says his two words. And the cop said, I thought you said he couldn't talk. I said he can't, honestly. That's all he can say. John died in October 2001, and before he died, I held him till he grew cold. I read him how it works. And I finished something of worth for another human being. Both my sons got married. I danced at their weddings.

One time, their father came from Jamaica, and him and I walked my son down the aisle, and I was able to make amends. And I have five grandchildren, and they're very loving to me. And I'm very grateful to have all of this in my life. I'm very grateful to have all the sponsors. I am very grateful to have a life of service and meaning. But, you know, we do have a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

And Bill Wilson had written once that we have to become citizens of the world. And, you know, this illness, it doesn't, you know, it's an ongoing illness. And sometimes it manifests in little bolts of depression. My sponsor used to call them Gratia Fondes. And every now and then, no matter how well you've done, you'll just have a little Gratia Fonde, you know. And the thing is not to be frightened about that, because you just know that something is happening with you, that God has not forgotten you.

Just keep doing the right things. God holds you in the palm of His hands. We have everything here to cope with this, and some people have it more than others. But also I have to become a citizen of the world. And sometimes I take this to extreme measures. And I think I'm in fit spiritual condition. You see, I've got to be in fit spiritual condition before I go out into the world, because there'll be dragons out there called people, places, and things.

And I'll just share this with you about last year. I'd read that they were having this sale on tissue boxes at my grocery, my pharmacy. And I went out early in the morning to get me some tissue boxes. I have never given a fig about the external of a tissue box. I could care less. I only care about content. And when I got in there, there's this woman who's gone ahead of me, got in there before me, and she's picking out all the boxes with tissues on them.

So I decided to be a citizen of the world and bring that to her attention, the unfairness of it. I said, excuse me, you're only picking out the boxes with flowers on them. She said, that's the only ones I want. I said, she said, that's the only ones I like. I said, me too. And I started fighting her. And her and I are battling over these boxes of tissues. And in the end, she has 11 with flowers on them, and I have one.

And she said, can you give me that? I said, no. And then I thought, hold on a minute. I'm 70, 30 years sober almost. I better call my sponsor. So I went and called my sponsor. She said, a bit immature, wasn't it? Drive with a box of tissues till you see her and make amends. And the last thing I'll share with you is this. I was working for a woman up until three years ago who was sent into my life to test my sobriety level.

And I thought I was, well, I knew I was working there because, you know, when my husband, there hadn't been a lot of money and we had used up a lot of money. I just needed a little extra just to make my retirement that little bit better. So I decided to put up with all of this. And, you know, when she threw a file at me, I could imagine myself. You can think what you like, but you have to act right.

And I could imagine myself picking it up and wrapping it around her face and just.

[01:05:05]

But that's not what I did. I just said, you know, you really shouldn't upset yourself like that. Anyway, one morning I was maybe not in fit spiritual condition. I don't know, but I went in there and I think maybe I had decided an unconscious level. I don't know what had gone on. And I think my soul just wanted me out of there and I didn't know how to say goodbye. And I walked in and she started on me.

She started haranguing me as I walked through the door. And I went to the front door. It was just her and I in the office. And I said, God, I'll see you when I come out. And I closed the door. And I took her inventory from when she was born. And I got a degree of rage that I did not know was still inside of me. And you know what we can be like. There's no spiritual there. It's just rage. Pure, unadulterated, unfiltered rage.

And then it stopped. And she was sitting cowering in the chair. And she said, I think you should go home. You're not feeling well. I said to her, you go home. I've got work to do. And she left. And I knelt down and wept from shame. And spoke to my God. And called my sponsor. And my sponsor said, I told you. You're always staying in relationships past the expiry date. She said, I want you to go in tomorrow.

Give a week's notice and make amends. And what I had to do afterwards with Norma. Norma just died last May. Her husband was in Al-Anon 50 years and she was in there 49. And I had to do a fourth on rage. I thought I'd done it. But you see what I came to see in that fourth, 30 years of sobriety. Or 29 years, whatever. Was that the essence, the base of that, that had caused that reaction in me. Was something that had happened to me long, long ago.

Real or imagined. That made me feel one more time powerless. Less than. Like I was the outside looking in. Just inferior. And I had to look at that. And then do a little fifth. So you see, for me the road is never ending. I am on a spiritual journey and I thank God for it. I believe I've done all my amends. I go to Scotland every year. My brother had a child born without arms and a club foot. And I was able to go there when that child was born and be a sister to my brother.

And go every year. And this year I'm going to be with all my grandchildren. And my sons are so loving. I can't tell you how loving my sons are to me. My eldest son, the one who wrote the letter, he said, Mom, whenever I feel down, I just think of where you're coming from. My sons are beautiful to me and so are my grandkids. In fact, my eldest grandkid, she used to call me all the time and say, Sean Ma, they call me Sean Ma.

I love you more than fresh vegetables. And the innocence of that just breaks my heart. So I want to thank you again so much for my life, for giving me my children back, for giving me a little self-esteem back, for giving me most of all my God that I found in these rooms. And, you know, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob. Bill Wilson said once, Alcoholics Anonymous is not a success story. Rather, it is a chronicle of our colossal human failure turned to usefulness by the divine alchemy of a loving God.

And thank you.